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Reading Books and Playing Games All Day

Humble Monthly August 2018 Review

Another month has begun, which means a new Humble Monthly is out for subscribers to enjoy. I’m going to go through the games and give some general first impressions of everything, as well as judge whether I will come back for more playtime in the future. If these game packages sound intriguing, go to Humble Bundle and enroll for future months. Let’s get started!

Woten

Humble Original title

The bundle kicks off with the DRM-free Woten. This is a 2D platforming game about a statue come to life and his fruit bat friend. The game’s central mechanic is that the main character is pretty heavy, so he can charge at walls in any direction to decimate them. If the player collects enough fruit throughout the level, a fruit bat can be paid in order to get onto otherwise impossible to reach ledges. The art style brings classic Nintendo games to mind, and the controls work well, though a tutorial going through the mechanics would have been appreciated. I’m really impressed by this title and am excited to go back and play some more.

Forged Battalion

Release Date: January 16, 2018 (Early Access)

Price: $19.99

Real-time strategy games are probably one of my least favorite genres. The learning curve is higher than I have the patience for, and I prefer to play single-player games, whereas RTS titles tend to lean more heavily towards multiplayer experiences. Forged Battalion does nothing to change my mind on the genre. Even after going through the short tutorial, I had no idea what was happening. Additionally, I avoid getting too attached to early access titles before their full release, as I’ve been burned by developers abandoning their games far too many times. I might just need more practice with the genre, but this is not going to be the game that converts me to RTS titles.

A Hat in Time

Release Date: October 5, 2017

Price: $29.99

This game has been on my radar since long before it came out, so I was really excited to grab it as a part of this bundle. So far, I am not disappointed. A Hat in Time is a 3D platforming title, and it is one of the best to come out in a long time. All of the traits of a 3D platformer are accounted for: The levels are open and varied, there are a multitude of different items to collect, and the characters are memorable. I can’t wait to keep playing this game, and I’m certain there will be a review of it here in the near future.

Kona

Release Date: March 17, 2017

Price: $14.99

Kona is a survival game set in Canada, and the story is told through some overhead narration as the player gathers the resources necessary to stay alive. The survival elements of this game are solid, and I didn’t feel stuck or confused at any point during my play session. That said, I don’t like survival games, as they tend to play at a slow pace and take a lot of micromanaging. This game, while solid enough, isn’t doing anything to convince me that it’s worth diving into further.

The Escapists 2

Release Date: August 21, 2017

Price: $19.99

The Escapists 2 is a simulation game in which the primary goal is to escape from prison. I played through the basic tutorial of the game, which allowed me to break out from prison once, and I found it enjoyable enough. Once I got into the game without the hand-holding, however, I got confused and ended up getting myself beaten up multiple times in quick succession. This game has a bit of a learning curve involved in becoming a model prisoner, and it will take some time to get better. I’m interested in playing some more, but only after I find some friends to tackle the multiplayer mode with, as I imagine the game will be a lot more exciting with other people.

Conan Exiles

Release Date: May 8, 2018

Price: $39.99

When I booted Conan Exiles up, I expected to hate it. The reviews on Steam are mixed, and it’s a survival game, which, as stated during my impression of Kona, is a genre I generally avoid. Still, after an hour in the game, I’m hooked. This is still a gritty survival game, with all of the foraging and base-building that the genre entails, but the small, incremental goals the game gives pushes me to move forward and find new ways to play. I’d very much like to convince a few friends to play this with me, because I think it would be a blast.

The Surge

Release Date: May 15, 2017

Price: $39.99

The Surge is basically a Dark Souls game with a futuristic cyberpunk palate-swap. So far, the plot of this game feels sort of like what would happen if Captain America or Wolverine’s surgeries to become superheroes went horribly wrong and the factory exploded, but finding out why the factory exploded is intriguing enough to keep me going. Ultimately, the story premise is interesting, the combat is fluid, and the world has a lot of backstory that makes walking around and fighting enemies rewarding. If I find the time among my massive backlog, I’ll keep playing this one for a while and see how the story continues.

Sudden Strike 4

Release Date: August 11, 2017

Price: $49.99

This is another RTS game, so similarly to Forged Battalion, this game is fighting an uphill battle. That said, this game has a far stronger tutorial, and the mechanics are more streamlined. After half an hour, I actually knew what I was doing, which may be a first for the genre. I’m not sure that this experience is enough to get me to come back to the game, especially since I’m not that interested in games set in the World Wars due to an overwhelming sense of “been there, done that”, but I do appreciate the game’s attempts at being easy to understand.

Pathologic HD

Release Date: October 29, 2015

Price: $12.99

Pathologic HD is a high-definition remake of the original 2005 cult classic. This is a survival horror game in which the characters are trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious plague. I’m a massive baby about horror games, but I have to admit, I found this game oddly intriguing. The majority of the game so far appears to just be reading endless lines of dialogue, but as a fan of visual novels, that doesn’t bother me at all. I’ll be playing more in the future, but probably with my boyfriend so he can keep me from getting too terrified.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the quantity of games from this bundle that I really enjoyed is smaller than last month, as A Hat in Time and Conan Exiles are probably the only two games that I’m definitely going to clock more playtime in. That said, I’m more interested in those two titles than I was in anything from last month, so I’d still say I like this bundle a lot more than the bundle from July.

Next month’s bundle has early unlocks of Sniper Elite 4, Tales of Berseria, and Staxel (or, optionally, Rise of the Tomb Raider instead of those three games for those who don’t already own that title). I opted to get the three titles instead of Tomb Raider because all three of those games are on my wishlist. Next month’s bundle is looking good.